Weekly Market Wrap: August 7, 2015
Friday, August 7, 3:13 PM ET

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Most actively traded stocks include SunEdison (NASDAQ:SUNE) down 10.25%, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) lower by 0.76%, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) up 2.2%, Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) down 6.4%, and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) up 0.03%.

The S&P 500, Dow and NASDAQ are all significantly lower over the last five trading days.

Crude oil futures are significantly lower this week, trading at $43.85 per barrel on Friday afternoon.

And Gold futures are lower this week, trading at $1093.29 an ounce this afternoon.

In economic news, in the week ending August 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 270,000, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 267,000. The 4-week moving average was 268,250, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 274,750.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 215,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Job gains occurred in retail trade, health care, professional and technical services, and financial activities.

In July, both the unemployment rate (5.3 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (8.3 million) were unchanged. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.9 percentage point and 1.4 million, respectively.

In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 2.2 million. These individuals accounted for 26.9 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 986,000.

In corporate dividend news, UPS (NYSE:UPS) declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.73 per share on all outstanding Class A and Class B shares. The dividend is payable September 1, 2015, to shareowners of record on August 17, 2015.

General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) declared a regular quarterly dividend of 69 cents per share on the company's common stock, payable November 13, 2015, to shareholders of record on October 9.

CME Group declared a third-quarter 2015 dividend of $0.50 per share, payable September 25, 2015, to shareholders of record as of September 10, 2015.

Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM) has declared a cash dividend of 28.0 cents per share on the company's common stock payable Sept. 9, 2015, to Stockholders of record Aug. 19, 2015.

American International Group (NYSE:AIG) declared a 124 percent increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.28 per share on AIG Common Stock, par value $2.50 per share. The dividend is payable on September 28, 2015, to stockholders of record at the close of business on September 14, 2015.

Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) declared a quarterly dividend on its common stock of 54 cents per share. The dividend relates to the company's fourth quarter of its 2015 fiscal year and is payable on October 30, 2015, to shareowners of record on October 9, 2015.

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.88 per share. The dividend is payable on Oct. 2, 2015, to stockholders of record on Sept. 4, 2015.

And, PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) is increasing its common stock dividend to $0.3775 per share on a quarterly basis. The increased dividend will be payable Oct. 1 to shareowners of record as of Sept. 10.

This is the 'Weekly Market Wrap' for Friday August 7, 2015.

Please join us on Monday for the Week Ahead Market Report.

For MarketNewsVideo.com, I'm Sayoko Murase.